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If Bob Vila wanted to buy real estate in New York, the former “This Old House” host would probably take the Q train to Victorian Flatbush.

The cluster of Brooklyn neighborhoods running from Prospect Park South to Ditmas Park to Fiske Terrace is the best urban area in the nation to buy a home, according to the upcoming issue of This Old House magazine.

“Indeed, the ‘hood’s outstanding lineup of free-standing Queen Anne and English Tudor homes set along broad, tree-lined streets renders it much more Charles Dickens than ‘Welcome Back, Kotter,’ ” the magazine proclaims.

The distinction came as little surprise to real-estate brokers in the neighborhood who say buyers’ jaws drop when they realize they can trade in their $1 million, cramped two-bedroom Manhattan apartments for seven-bedroom, century-old mansions.

“We call it the country in the city,” said broker Mary Kay Gallagher, 88, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1959. “When people come here, they can’t get over the front porches, the driveways, the back yards and all the details. They say, ‘I can park here.’ ”

Built shortly after the turn of the 20th century, the homes are considered pre-suburbs, and remain sort of halfway houses for families on the fence between city and suburban life.

Gallagher yesterday showed several homes to a couple who started on the Upper West Side and currently rent in Brooklyn Heights, but who, with two children, have been looking for more space.

According to This Old House, fixer-uppers start at $600,000 to $900,000 in the area, but brokers say even a home that needs a great deal of work would likely start on the higher end of that range.

The area is not for everyone, Corcoran broker Jessica Buchman said.

Even though a slew of high-end restaurants have opened in recent years, parents are still concerned “the local schools haven’t kept up with the changing neighborhood,” she said. “A lot of them have underground oil tanks, and ancient mechanicals, which are turnoffs to a first-time homebuyer.

“But even with the ones in disrepair, it doesn’t take that much money to restore them – not nearly as much as people think.”